Chuseok Video

Making rice candy

Chuseok

Today we celebrated Korea's version of Thanksgiving, Chuseok. This holiday is actually on Saturday however we have Thursday and Friday off. The Kinder students came dressed in their traditional Korean clothes and we made rice candy. It was a very fun day!


My class

The rice candy, in white and green. The beans are on the inside and the nut and sugar mix is on the outside.

Jenny, Louie and Jasmin

Mini, Samuel, Lex and Sarah

The winning team

Here is James Teachers class of first year, seven year old students. They sang 'Another Brick in the Wall' by Pink Floyd.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Today at LCI we had a singing competition. We found out about this about 10 days ago. My class was going to sing 'London Bridge' because they think it is hilarious however my supervisor and I wanted to pick something else to challenge them. I chose the song 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight.' We have been practicing it for days and they have done really well in class. A few of the students are really good at singing it. We practiced it yesterday with the soundtrack however it only distracted the kids so I decided that we would sing without it. I have been cutting lion manes out of brown and yellow paper for days. They were very cute little lions! Of course when we sang today, the students did a less than average job. Louie started to sing in a weird voice about half way through and it went down hill from there........We took 4th place.
Here is the video of my class


Sean and Chelcy


Lex, Sarah and Samuel

Hiking with 6 year olds

On Wednesday morning we took all of the LCI Kinder students hiking. We have not been able to go on field trips in the last three months, due to swine flu, so the school decided we should go hiking. The weather here has been getting to be more like fall weather each day. Except for yesterday. It was warm. The school asked that the kids wear their PE uniforms so that they can been spotted easily. For the uniform the kids can wear a sweat shirt or a tshirt. Of course they all wore sweatshirts. As we were hiking they were getting so warm. To make things worse, we were suppose to be going on a 'stroll' instead of a hike. We ended up taking the wrong path and started up a vertical climb. There were literally handfuls of 5-7 year olds sliding down the pathway. At any given point I had 4 of my 10 students grabbing onto me, or my shirt or my legs, for dear life. We ended up turning around at this climb and headed back down. It made for an interesting morning!


Starting the hike L-R
Alex, Sean, Louie (in the back), Jenny, Daniel, Mini, Samuel, Sarah, Chelcy and Jasmin (pink hat)

Walking on the trail

Jasmin, Mini, Alex, Jenny, Chelcy, Sarah and Samuel
Sean, Louie and Daniel are trying to run away in back

L-R
Louie, Sarah (in back), Jasmin, Jenny, Daniel, Chelcy, Alex, Sean and Samuel

A few more photos

At the top 1,517 Meters

Photos from Taebaek (Other post below)

In the cave

A temple we saw

Starting the hike

Near the top

At the top

Taebaek

On Saturday Britney and I headed to Taebaek. When we arrived we were a little shocked. The town was small and made us a little nervous about finding things to do. We decided to walk to a cave. We had seen a few signs about it. We walked forever trying to find it. We almost turned back a few times however we really want to see the cave. We made it after 2 hrs. We took the 'tour.' By tour I mean that they give you a hard hat and then let you go around the cave by yourself. There is a course that you must follow however there is no guide.

After the cave we met Fred at the bus station. Then the three of us had lunch, coffee and walked around. We then headed to the base of the mountain to explore. We saw a temple. Then we met his roommate Seth and had dinner. Later in the evening we met up with Fred's old roommate Travis and his brother Stephen. We found a hotel and went to bed.

In the morning we started to hike up Taebaek mountain. It took us about 2 hrs to get to the top. It was a great hike however my knee really hurt once we finished! We stayed a the summit for a while enjoying the beautiful views. We then headed down and had dinner. At 7:40 Britney and I took a bus back to Suwon!

Heading to see Fred

This week went by as fast as normal. The kids were crazy but so much fun. I had all 10 of my kinder students each day, so it became stressful. Tonight I headed out for dinner with a few of the other teachers after work. In the morning Britney and I are headed to Taebaek. It is a small city of about 54,000 directly east of us. We are going to meet Fred and his roommate Seth there. They are meeting with an old Pohang teacher, Travis and his brother, who have been hiking Korea for a few months. They will be in Taebaek for the weekend. We are leaving at 7 am. It takes us 3.5 hrs by bus to get there. We plan on hiking in the mountains all day. I am very excited to get out of Suji and to see Fred. I have been here for 10 weeks and have only seen him twice. I will update you all after the trip!!!

RENT in Seoul

The end of the week was very boring. On Friday after work a few of us went out for sushi and a drinks. On Saturday I bummed around Suji and walked around with Britney for a while. Then we, Britney, Gina, Christine, Shauna and I, headed into Seoul to see RENT. We stopped for dinner at a Mexican place in Itawon. I have missed Mexican food more than anything. It was very satisfying.

I found out that RENT would be in Korea a few weeks ago. We looked online and realized that it is the same tour that is going to be in the US. I think that it started here, for practice ect, then the US leg starts, until January 2010. There were large jumbo-trons on either side of the stage that had the lyrics in Korean. It was a little distracting, however interesting at the same time. Two of the original Broadway cast members were in this show. It was very good, however not the best production of it that I have seen.

In front of the sign outside of KBS Hall


KBS Hall

The stage from our seats. The jumbo-trons with Korean on each side of the stage.

Today was a typical Sunday. I did laundry and cleaned. In the afternoon Britney and I took the subway 3 stops into Seoul to explore. We walked around for a while before coming back to Suji. Today I also cut my hair. No one at the salon spoke English. I motioned that I wanted a cut and the lady seemed to understand. I had to wait for a few minutes and then this man come over to get me. I had showed him this picture that I found however it had bangs, which I did not want. I had to get him to understand that I wanted this look without the bangs. He cut my hair when it was dry and he checked it many times to make sure it was even. It took about 40 minutes and then I left. It is now once again, above my shoulders!

This week has been very stressful. My students have been really wild. To my surprise all of the stress this week has been coming from my afternoon elementary classes, not my kinder class. My kinder students have been really good this week. I have been bribing them with stickers from my stash (thanks mom and Aunt Sandy!). This has really been working. They know that they must be good if they want a sticker at the end of the day.

The elementary classes have not been listening. My MWF 4:00 class started writing essays this week. Last Friday we went over these essays in class. There were suppose to write about something they like to make. It was suppose to be 3 paragraphs, at least 12 sentences. On Monday I got them back. One boy wrote a proper essay, one of the girls wrote 9 sentences and the other 4 wrote 3 sentences! They haven't been listening and participating, making it a very hard week so far!

My M-F 2:3o class has been pretty good, as usual. This class has 4 boys and 3 girls.

I also haven't been feeling the best this week. I have a little bit of a cold and a sore throat. It seems that everyone at work has been sick lately. 2 of the supervisors have been sick also. I guess this is a risk you take when you are working with kids all day!!

Tomorrow is Thursday so it must get better! I have learned that Wednesday being a 'hump' day is true in Korea! I have never dreaded Wednesdays as much as I do here. Once the 'hump' is over, its smooth sailing!

Bus Tour Pictures

Seoul Tower





Korean War Memorial


Pottery in the National Museum of Korea


Walking around the park outside of the museum

Seoul Bus Tour

This morning Britney, Shauna, Christine and I went into Seoul around 9am. Once we got there we met up with Christine's uncle. He is a professor in a city about 3 hours south of Seoul. I has lived in Korea before and is fluent in Korean. He took us around for the day and was so helpful, including answering all of our questions! We decided to do a hop-on hop-off bus tour around Seoul.

Our first stop on the bus tour was to Deoksugung Palace. We made it there just in time to watch the changing of the guards. This was very cool thing to see however it was very over down for the tourists, like us. We walked around for a bit and then headed to our next destination! We then went to the National Museum of Korea. We looked at tons of beautiful pottery and other artifacts. After that we had lunch at a BBQ pork place and went to the War Memorial of Korea. Then we went to the Seoul Tower. We climbed the hill to the base of the tower but did not go up it. There was a 'show' going on outside of the tower that we stopped to watch. There were many men in traditional Korean clothes, doing a show with swords. We then stopped at another tower before we headed back to Suji.

Changing of the guard at Deoksugung Palace

In front of the Seoul Tower

The Grand Tour

Here is the grand tour of my apartment. Now you can experience its size, charm (?) and the infamous bathroom!

FYI

Each week we must teach our Kinder classes a song. It just so happens that the song this week is 'London Bridge.' My kids don't really get that it just happens to be my name and they can't insert there own. All of the other teachers think it is just hilarious. I thought you all would find this very comical!